Chuck vs Oblivion
by chasingfireflies
Summary: She grimaced at the bitter taste of the alcohol in her mouth, the bitter sound of that question to her ears. She couldn’t lie to him this time. Not when he was like this. -- oneshot.


**Disclaimer: No. Just no.  
**

**Selected lyrics from Madina Lake's 'Welcome to Oblivion' included.**

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* * *

**

"Sarah! I wasn't expecting you here tonight! You and Chuck have a date?"

"…No…?" Sarah asked in reply, looking back at Ellie warily. The woman was in her scrubs, probably about to head out for her night shift at the hospital. Ellie frowned at the answer. "I was just checking up. Morgan caught up with me after work today saying Chuck hadn't showed up for his shift. I got a little concerned. Is he okay?"

"You try getting in his room to find out," Ellie replied dryly. "He came out this morning for breakfast looking somewhat as though he was going to pass out, so I called in work for him saying he was sick and sent him back to bed. I don't think he came out since."

Sarah's brow furrowed.

"Come to think of it, I don't think he left his room much yesterday, either," the brunette commented thoughtfully.

Sarah pursed her lips slightly. Two nights ago, they'd weeded out a small Fulcrum cell downtown. It was a bust. Of course, they'd all gone home relatively well, and she hadn't been worried about his state afterwards because there hadn't been anything evidently wrong at the time. It seemed she'd missed something.

"And him not playing videogames on a day off is like… well, you know." She paused for a moment and checked her watch. "I don't have to clock in for another twenty minutes – maybe I should just give him a quick check up."

Sarah quickly plastered on a smile.

"No, don't worry Ellie," she said quickly. "I'll look after him. You should go to your shift."

Ellie looked politely surprised.

"You sure?" she asked. "You don't have to. Besides, I am a doctor – it might help to have a professional opinion…?"

"It's okay. If it seems to get any worse, though, I promise you'll be the first to know."

She had the other woman convinced. Consequently, after giving a couple of tips for sick people and a warm farewell, they'd traded places and Ellie was off on her way out the door while Sarah walked into the apartment and closed the door behind her. She made her way to Chuck's room without much thought, until she encountered the smallest and most insignificant of all human problems.

He'd locked his door.

She gritted her teeth and glared at the doorknob, thinking, not for the first time, that her skills as a handler for Chuck were decidedly below par. If she'd been half as great an agent – heck, even half as great a friend – she would've realised something was wrong with Chuck when he hadn't spoken a word to her, or Casey, after the mission – let alone for two days after.

Now, no more than a piece of wood was keeping her from Chuck, and to hell with it if a _locked door _would stand in her way.

She knocked twice.

"Chuck, you in there?" What the hell was she asking that for? Of _course_ he was in there – she could hear his stereo's low volume in the background, and clearly he'd locked the door. She rolled her eyes. "Chuck, either you open the door for me, or I break it down."

Of course, she didn't even get an answer.

_-x-_

_On an island out in the sea  
__I wouldn't care what they think of me  
__But in this crowded room I believe  
__That I'm seconds from insanity  
_'_Cause their eyes just rip me apart  
__and my temperamental mind  
__Decides that I'm the enemy_

_-x-  
_

It wasn't hard for her to pick the lock – not at all – but she was soon wishing she hadn't.

The room was darker than it had ever been when she was in there before – the blinds were pulled down and there was a shirt stuffed under the door, making it hard to open and blocking out the light before she moved it aside. With the door open, though, his room lit up well enough for her to see the entire interior.

She'd never seen it in such a messed up way.

It was as though it had been hit by a low level tornado – books were lying all over the place, his computer was off it's usual perch, the screen punched in and with the glass scattered around it, shining with the reflection of the light from the hallway. The air was still, and stale, and from that she figured that the window was tight shut and the door had been closed for the most of the day – possibly two.

The remains of a smashed vodka bottle were spread at the foot of the wall opposite his bed, while another two bottles lay, discarded, beside one of Chuck's white work shirts that was stained with blood. Looking to the bed, she saw what she was dreading – Chuck, splayed face down, one arm hanging off the side of the mattress with another bottle of alcohol in his hand, this time tequila.

"Straight tequila, Chuck?" she muttered, aghast. He didn't reply, but the small rise in his shoulders showed he was, at the least, still breathing. "How didn't Casey _get_ this one already?"

She pursed her lips, making her way over to his bedside and pulling the bottle of tequila, now only a third of it left, out of his hand, placing it on his desk with countless scraps of shredded paper. She turned back around to see several more bottles of different sizes scattered across the floor and under the bed. She grumbled as she moved back to the bed and tried to roll him onto his back, fingers digging into his bare skin.

The thought of that possibly causing him harm barely crossed her mind before she pushed it aside. To hell with his pain threshold if all he was going to do was drink himself into the ground.

He groaned as she, ever so slowly, got him lying on his back.

"Conscious, are you?" she asked, her tone somewhat bitter, sarcastic.

"Sarah…" he breathed out quietly, and she huffed angrily, sitting down on the edge of his bed and looking down at him as he tried to lift his eyelids, to see her. He'd drunk far too much, she knew, and she knew the effects. He was too heavy right then to even look at her without a struggle.

"Care to tell me what the _hell _was so painstakingly _horrible _that it had you drinking yourself _paralysed_!" she demanded roughly. She wondered at the anger twisting down her spine until she saw him wince, pained by her volume and the tone of her voice. She regretted it immediately and put a hand to his clammy forehead, hoping to relieve the sting.

"…Last mission," he grumbled out softly, and she struggled to hear it over the soft, barely there playing of his stereo in the background. She frowned, pushing his hair back from his face and letting her eyes trace his features while he opened his eyes to look back at her groggily. There was something sad in his eyes, and she wondered at his torment, needing to know what it was she'd _missed _on that assignment.

"What the hell happened?"

_-x-_

_Welcome to oblivion  
__Where panic starts to settle in  
__Welcome to oblivion  
__Oh, I think I'm losing it_

_-x-  
_

"Why are there two of you, Sarah?"

She frowned slightly, still pissed off that he'd gotten himself completely smashed in the first place, but couldn't help the small twinge of both awe and surprise at his perfect speech in his drunken state. She rolled her eyes at the comment.

"Because you're an idiot," she said coldly. "Now what's wrong?"

He moaned slightly, closing his eyes as a pained expression crossed his face.

"Tell me," she insisted gently, and he turned his face away from her slowly. She sighed at the silence that fell between them. He was steeling himself, though – working his reasons through his heavily misted mind.

"…I don't want to feel this," she barely heard him say. "I saw their light go out, y'know? And then it was like this darkness, and… I can't… I panicked, Sarah… I panicked…"

She was silent, trying to make sense of his words. She couldn't comprehend what would've happened to him in the brief moments she wasn't with him on the mission. She glanced over to the empty vodka bottles and the bloody shirt.

"Did you get hurt?"

He was silent, and she flicked her gaze between him and the bloodstained shirt. Then he started laughing, ever so softly, and it was dark and daunting. This wasn't the expected reaction. It was as though she was completely wrong.

"Not me, no."

And it was her eyes locked on the shirt that got it through her head. It wasn't bloodstained. It was splattered. Her breath got caught in her throat, a sinking feeling in her gut. The anger was replaced by dread, misery.

"…Who?

"Two Fulcrum. You left me alone for three minutes," he told her grimly, and his words varied, some drawn out, others not. He only had the slightest slur in his voice. "Three iddy-biddy minutes. And they came to get me. But Casey left his gun."

Her eyes widened at the opposite wall. She couldn't breathe.

_-x-_

_So many voices I can't even sleep  
__Typical late night company  
__They ask questions about my life  
__Where is it going? Who am I?  
__And those voices rip me apart  
__I need medicine to quiet and survive this_

_-x-  
_

This was wrong. It _had _to be wrong.

It was Chuck – innocent, nerdy, never-stays-in-the-car Chuck. He couldn't have killed someone, couldn't be like her. It was im_possible_ – im_probable_ – un_believable_. He was always the soft one, the one who needed protecting from the others, not the one who killed them.

"Chuck…" she called softly, and the weakness in her voice was shocking.

"I can't see them anymore," he told her breezily. "Drunk too much," he grunted out, and her throat felt constricted. He'd been drinking for two days straight to forget about them – the two people he'd shot.

This couldn't _possibly _be happening.

"Casey's bugs?" she asked stiffly, as soon as she'd regained her voice. He was silent behind her for several seconds, stewing over the abrupt change in conversation, probably trying to dredge up any memory of Casey's surveillance equipment.

"Freezer," he grumbled eventually, and she stood up almost immediately, collecting all his empty bottles and leaving the room. She'd managed to dump them in the kitchen sink before she let it hit her.

Impossible. This wasn't happening. Chuck Bartowski didn't kill people, and Sarah Walker most _certainly _didn't have a complete breakdown in her fake boyfriend's _kitchen_. This _couldn't _be happening.

But, all evidence to the contrary, there she was gripping the sink so hard that it almost felt as though the table edge was shifting beneath her fingers. The sheer impossibility of the situation was too much to handle. Her breathing was ragged, uneven, she was barely restraining tears, she was shaking, and she had her teeth gritted in sheer agony at the mere thought of Chuck.

She'd never seen him more broken, more miserable, let alone so drunk – he normally quit at a level he deemed 'lightly buzzed'. But he'd changed in a split second, she realised, because she'd left him alone on a mission, because he hadn't stayed in the car, because Casey was irresponsible with his weaponry, and because the two of them had failed at protecting him. They hadn't saved him from the Fulcrum agents, and, in turn, they hadn't saved him from himself. She'd seen it before, she'd lived it, she knew how it worked.

It was irreparable.

She took a few deep breaths, steadying herself, staring down at the empty bottles in the sink. Too many, he'd drunk too much, and she was surprised he wasn't being sick. When she finally felt she was calm enough, strong enough, she righted herself, glancing towards his fridge steadily.

He couldn't _honestly_ have meant it when he said he'd stuck the bugs in the _freezer_.

Of course, she was wrong, and he was drunk, so she'd opened the freezer door to see all of them, every last microphone of Casey's, stuffed into a large jar in the freezer. There must have been more that twenty, she figured, and despite the horrible situation they were in, the sight of a jar of surveillance gear in the Bartowski freezer gave her the odd urge to laugh.

Contrary, though, she pursed her lips, closed the freezer door, stole herself, and made her way back to his room.

_-x-_

_Welcome to oblivion  
__Where panic starts to settle in  
__And I'm afraid of everything  
__Oh, I lost my head again  
__Welcome to oblivion  
__Where my whole life is caving in  
__And I can't stand who I am  
__Oh, I think I'm losing it_

_-x-  
_

The air was still stale, and he was exactly as she'd left him – on his side in his bed, facing the wall. The bottle of tequila was still on his desk, the room still dark. She didn't have the heart in her to turn on the light, so she resigned herself to opening his window just wide enough to work some fresh air into his still room.

"…Sarah?" she heard him ask faintly, and she paused to look over at him from the window.

"What is it, Chuck?"

"…Reckon I won't have to stay in the car anymore?"

She narrowed her eyes at his figure, turning around to start fixing up his room stiffly. "Not even funny, Chuck." But he was shaking ever so slightly behind her with barely-there laughter, because it had some apparent humour in his mind. That was how their next several minutes passed – near complete silence while she cleaned up his mess – _her fault_ – punctuated occasionally by an odd question or statement from him.

"Reckon Casey's had a girlfriend in the last couple of months?"

She had to smile at that one. Only Chuck would ever feel concern over Casey's loneliness – or possibly, the well being of the random girl Casey took interest in every once in a while.

"I don't like to think about it," she replied softly. She heard him chuckle out an answer, so low she couldn't catch it, that sounded suspiciously like 'lol'. She rolled her eyes.

"Sarah?"

"Hmm?" was her questioning reply, somewhat distant this time, eyes trained on his desk while she found a few of his thrown books and made to put them away.

"Have you ever-" Oh, she hated this game, "-roundhouse kicked a man in the face?"

She snorted loudly, unable to stop herself, before clapping a hand over her mouth, her eyes lighting up briefly. Of all things she'd expected him to ask, that wasn't high on the list. Painstakingly obvious for _Chuck_, perhaps, but unexpected. Trust a drunk Chuck.

"Oh yeah," she replied quickly. "Several times. It's effective."

"…You can really kick that high?"

"Remember who you're talking to, Chuck."

"Right. Spe-shal agent," he said slowly, and she shook her head slightly at the random showing of his drunkenness in his voice. "…Sarah?"

"Yes, Chuck?"

"I reckon Ellie likes you," he told her, almost absent-mindedly, and something in his tone sounded remarkably young, childish, and innocent. "I reckon she kind of loves you. Like a sister."

Her breathing caught again.

"I reckon you should stay," he continued. "Just for Ellie. Ellie deserves good things."

He said it in a way that told her he didn't think the same of himself. He didn't believe himself worthy. She sighed slightly, turning to see his motionless form once more, still facing away from her.

"I reckon I should stay too," she told him simply. "But not just for Ellie."

They were silent again. Then-

"Hey Sarah?"

"Yeah, Chuck?" she sighed out.

"What's your favourite breakfast cereal?" he asked, and she let a small smile cross her face, feeling wonder at his ability to forget. Drunk Chuck seemed to fish better for random topics than sober Chuck, a feat she'd previously thought impossible.

"Not a huge cereal fan myself," she told him thoughtfully. "Kinda sucks if you don't eat it quickly enough. I'm more of a baked food type of person."

"Hear, hear," he replied in agreement, and they sunk back into silence.

Of course, they still hadn't either figured out his little bloody problem, nor managed to avoid it entirely, so that silence couldn't last very long at all.

"…Sarah?"

It was kind of repetitive how he said her name that way.

"Yes, Chuck?"

Come to think of it, her reply wasn't very original either.

"Reckon you could ever find it in yourself to love me?"

_Oh _boy, _that_ had alarm bells ringing. She came to the apartment expecting a sick Chuck, found one who was trying to cope with having killed someone, and now, here he was, asking her possibly the most dangerous and awkward question possible in their relationship. But it couldn't possibly do any harm to say something – _anything _– real in reply. He was _drunk _after all.

Completely and utterly smashed.

"Not meaning now," he reassured her quickly, and she realised she'd taken too long to answer, staring at him with wide eyes and her mouth slightly open. "No, no… but one day, maybe…?" He still wasn't looking at her, of course.

She couldn't answer him, though – not this bold Chuck, who'd asked her a question she'd never thought he would ask. Not a Chuck who'd downed far more than his fair share of alcohol to block out his memories. Not a Chuck who was this broken, this miserable.

She wanted to, though. Desperately.

_-x-_

_As I fall apart inside  
__All of my thoughts collide  
__And that's no way to live a life  
__Oh, I think I'm losing it_

_-x-  
_

"Guess not, huh," he answered for her, and she felt her stomach jolt. But he still hadn't turned his glazed eyes to her. "Wouldn't blame you, neither. Too wonderful for a nerd like me."

Her body shook slightly at his words, but she couldn't force any sound past her lips. She was stuck.

"Sarah?" he asked her, leaving the last topic just as quickly as he'd taken it up. She didn't reply, but it didn't seem to sway him. "I killed them, you know."

She couldn't help it this time. The tears were coming to her eyes again. He said it so matter-of-factly, as if it were a normal part of his day, a casual occurrence, and it was a statement, not a question. She struggled to stay upright, leaning backwards onto his desk to steady herself. It was wrong, she decided, hearing those words come from Chuck's lips. She _had _to be dreaming. It _had _to be a nightmare.

"Said horrible things to me," he told her. "I panicked. And Casey's gun. I didn't know where it came from. But it was easy – so easy. Two shots. Two seconds. Barely had to look."

The tears were streaming down her face now, silently falling. He seemed so calm. He must have still been in shock, not to mention, heavily influenced by alcohol.

"And then they bled, Sarah," he continued, still facing the wall. She was fairly certain he was shaking now – it looked like he was. But his tears – and she knew he was crying – didn't make it into his voice. He was still entirely calm. "Everywhere. Splattered on my shirt. Took their tags, you know? Don't know why. Seemed like the right thing to do, for some reason. But I got their blood on my hands, too."

She swallowed painfully, forcing her legs to hold her. She stood properly, grabbing the rest of the tequila from the desk behind her, and made her way to his bedside. The mattress dipped under her weight, and she sat beside him, putting one hand to the side of his face and moving his hair behind his ear with light fingers. She could see the tears on his face, but his voice still didn't shake, and his eyes stayed on the wall.

"Wiped it on my shirt, and they looked clean again," he explained slowly. "You didn't notice. Did up my jacket. But they didn't feel clean, Sarah. They don't feel clean now. Couldn't tell you, couldn't talk."

She stroked the side of his face for a few seconds more in silence before talking to him in her soft voice.

"It's okay, Chuck," she told him gently, and her eyes caught the subtle, pained shift in his features.

"No it's not."

With a bitter taste in her mouth, she lifted the tequila to her own lips and took a swig – now she needed the drink as bad as he did. This was unbearable – it had always been her burden to carry, not his. She'd taken lives, he'd been her justification for it. Now it was all wrong, mixed up, twisted.

"…Sarah?" he asked her eventually, and now his voice was smaller, weak, and shaky. It made her heart ache to hear him like that. She took another swig, and trailed her fingers down the side of his face again, in no way trying to have him turn to her. This was close enough for the moment.

"Hmm?"

"Does it ever go away?" he asked her quietly, but he sounded hopeless. The breeze hit them, and she almost didn't hear him, even as she took a breath of fresh air. "Their faces. Do you ever forget them? Does this feeling ever go away?"

She grimaced at the bitter taste of the alcohol in her mouth, the bitter sound of that question to her ears. She couldn't lie to him this time. Not when he was like this.

"…No. It doesn't."

She felt him nod beneath her fingertips, barely. Minutes later, in the silence that followed, he turned around and leant his head against her chest, something she'd normally reprimand him for. But he was only listening to her heartbeat, she realised, so she stuck the alcohol on the bedside table and focused on comforting him – her fingers trailing, again, down the side of his face, and sometimes on his bare arms.

After some time, he fell asleep beside her, his ragged breathing evening out considerably and his tears stopping. He'd slung an arm around her waist, whether for warmth or for self-comfort she didn't know, but nor did she care. She just stared up at the roof, feeling sorry for him, hating how he was feeling and how that made her feel.

This wasn't supposed to have happened. He was supposed to stay naïve, whole, and innocent. She was supposed to protect him from the cruelty of the world. She'd failed him, she knew. Now he'd lost a part of himself to the familiar darkness she had in her own soul. She sighed, talking to him while he slept before she attempted to fall asleep herself.

"Welcome to oblivion, Chuck."

* * *

**R&R, plx?**


End file.
